


Jamaispartout

by Solshine



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M, Neil Gaiman - Freeform, Neverwhere - Freeform, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:54:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solshine/pseuds/Solshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire's sane, quiet, and actually very pathetic life is upended when he helps out a (pretty scary, scary pretty) homeless guy bleeding on the sidewalk. His act of kindness catapults him into the terrifying and brutal world of Paris Below, a strange place in the cracks of the world, realm of the forgotten and the displaced, which Grantaire doesn’t quite believe in. To be fair though, Grantaire doesn't believe in much. A Neverwhere fusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Helped along by Quietrae on tumblr and betaread by Cloudywithachanceofbuckbeak.

Yes, Grantaire knew that his eyes had not historically been the most trustworthy, especially when he’d been drinking. Yes, he’d been drinking that night. (Yes, he’d usually been drinking.) And maybe the fact that nobody else around him seemed to have noticed the bleeding young man who had stumbled out of apparently nowhere onto the pavement should have been a tipoff that something wasn’t quite right. But to be fair, he was used to people not noticing dirty, unmoving bodies on the street, including his. This man wasn’t drunk though; he was bleeding.

And before you say anything, Grantaire tried to shake the man awake before the man rolled over with a groan and turned out to be gorgeous. What kind of drunken good Samaritan do you think he is?

There was even more blood on his front.

“Hey, man. Hey. Are you awake? I’m gonna get you an ambulance, okay?” He was already pulling out his phone when a bloody hand came up to grab his coat sleeve.

“Not a hospital,” the man croaked.

Grantaire frowned. I mean, okay, he got it, even in Paris there’s not a lot of ways you could get this bloodied up outside of something unsavory happening either to you or on your part. So he got why somebody might not want the attention a hospital gathered. But still.

“Dude, that’s a lot of blood. You need a hospital,” he insisted.

“Just need somewhere safe,” whispered the man, as his eyes fluttered closed again. Grantaire sighed and scraped his fingers through his hair.

“All right, all right. No hospital. I’ll just… take you home, I guess. You’re gonna have to help me out here some though, I’m almost too drunk to get myself home, much less you.”

He helped the man stand, hoisting him onto his shoulder, and with what should have been not much help from the mystery man, they somehow stumbled their way to Grantaire’s apartment.

\---

“Where am I?” a forceful voice was demanding, and for a few moments Grantaire was asking the same question. He’d woken up many places in his life that weren’t his bed, after all. But a survey of his surroundings resulted in his sitting room slash kitchenette, where he’d passed out on the couch the night before, so he turned groggily blinking eyes on the grimy young man frowning at him, and said “My apartment.”

“What barony though?” the man said impatiently. “Who’s the lord here?”

In the daylight coming through the blinds, he looked even dirtier than the night before, and even more obviously stunning underneath. He had golden hair, really golden, yellow and shining as best it could under the mud, that was tied back with what was probably a shoelace. His stern, smudged face was something out of classical statuary, and his eyes were sharp and intelligent and commanding and quite blue. In addition to the scarf Grantaire had wrapped around his arm last night, he was wearing a bizarre assortment of layered clothes, including a scarlet jacket on top that had seen much better days, and somewhere under a collection of different button-downs and blouses, a red waistcoat hanging open with weird once-gold ribs on either side. A long cloth sash that might have been an actual French flag at one point was round his waist, and a gray silk scarf knotted loosely around his neck like a dismantled cravat. The effect was not one of great bulk, possibly because everything was too threadbare for bulk. It was, of course, all stained and mud-streaked and covered in dried blood.

He looked gruesome. He looked very homeless.

He looked elegant. He looked incredible.

He snapped his fingers in Grantaire’s face. “What fiefdom? Where am I?”

“Uh. St. Michel?” Grantaire said.

“Paris Above,” the man said sharply, apparently to himself.

“Paris, yeah,” agreed Grantaire cautiously. The stranger thought about this for a moment. “What’s your name?” Grantaire asked while he was doing so.

“Enjolras,” the man said. “Help me put a bandage on my arm.” He stood up and headed to the bathroom without waiting for a response.

“I’m Grantaire,” Grantaire offered, following him. In the bathroom, Enjolras flipped on the light. Grantaire immediately flinched, whimpered, and flipped it off again. “Let’s not. I don’t have cover for that lightbulb and I am really hung over.”

Enjolras seemed distinctly unimpressed. “You’re going to need light to see my wound,” he pointed out. Grantaire waved off his concern.

“I’ve done more with less,” he said, which didn’t look like it reassured Enjolras much. Grantaire rummaged in the first aid kit, squinting in the dim light, finally extracting some gauze and bandages and some washcloths from the cabinet under the sink.

The washing of Enjolras bloody arm was almost as laborious as the peeling off and rolling up of his many layers, but Grantaire was patient and gentle.

“I’ve cleaned up way worse than this after a good bar brawl,” he said as he washed, which wasn’t really true, but was nearly so, and it was good bedside manner anyway. “One time my friend Bahorel got clobbered over the head with a chair, got a split across his forehead that bled like anything. I cleaned him up and he probably should have gotten stitches, but we stuck a butterfly bandage on it and called it good. Half his face was purple for a week and you can still see the scar clear as day.” Enjolras said nothing, and Grantaire coughed and rewet the washcloth with warm water. “Hey, this isn’t nearly as bad as you’d think from the mess after all,” he said as he uncovered the gash on Enjolras’ forearm.

“Most of the blood wasn’t mine,” said Enjolras.

“Oh,” said Grantaire. “Right. Uh, good?” There was no answer. Grantaire sighed and put gauze on the wound, then began to wrap the arm in bandage. “If you don’t mind me asking—”

“I do mind,” Enjolras said. Grantaire shut his mouth with a pop and hunched over his work. Now it was Enjolras’ turn to sigh.

“I’m sorry. I’m a little stressed at the moment.”

“Understandable, I’m sure.”

“Thank you for helping me,” Enjolras said, solemn and sincere, looking straight into Grantaire’s eyes. Grantaire reddened and ducked his head.

“Yeah, of course,” he mumbled. No sooner had he taped down the bandage end than there was a knock on the door. Grantaire frowned.

“Huh. Feuilly must’ve forgot his keys.” He set down the roll of bandages on the bathroom counter. “My roommate works graveyard shift, he comes home at weird hours. I’ll be right back.”

Grantaire checked out the peephole first, and was surprised to discover it wasn’t Feuilly. It was two men in suits, looking sinister in the distortion of the fisheye lens. He unlocked the door anyway, but left the chain on (although as an inherently untrusting individual he’d probably leave the chain on for an old lady seeking a cup of sugar). As soon as he’d opened the door, he was glad for the chain. His two guests were even more sinister without the benefit of the peephole lens.

The taller one was certainly the most intimidating specimen Grantaire had ever seen in a suit, his wide shoulders stretching the seams, but it was the other man who was really frightening. He was young and handsome and clean-cut, his hair slicked back with what looked like pomade, his lashes long and his lips as red as though he’d been drinking blood. His suit was much fancier than the other man’s, like he was ready to go to the opera—or maybe like he was in an opera, but not a nice one. One where all the good people ended up dead by the finale and this guy was left, holding the knife.

“Good afternoon, sir. My name is Monsieur Montparnasse, and this is my brother, Monsieur Guelemer. We’re inquiring as to a missing person.”

“Missing person?” Grantaire repeated stupidly, although he made no move to take off the chain.

“Our brother,” Montparnasse said. “By name of Enjolras.”

Guelemer pulled out a sheet of paper from a stack under his arm and held it up in one meaty hand. The man in the photo was grainy and much cleaner than the one in Grantaire’s bathroom, but it was definitely him.

“Haven’t seen anyone like that,” he said, because although he still didn’t know whether Enjolras was a hardened criminal likely to stab him in the throat as soon as Grantaire was no longer useful, he definitely got that vibe from these two. And if these dark, greasy guys were the brothers of that golden specimen, Grantaire would eat his beanie.

His denial, and the chain, did nothing to stop Guelemer, however, who pushed through, snapping the chain like a string, and started taking a self-guided tour of Grantaire’s apartment.

“Hey!” Grantaire squawked.

“Our missing brother is simple, you see,” said Montparnasse with an oily sneer. “He shouldn’t be on his own. We’re very worried.”

“Well he isn’t here!” yelped Grantaire as Guelemer stuck his head in Grantaire’s bedroom, and then Feuilly’s, and then pushed open the bathroom door. Grantaire rushed back to—what? Eject this gorilla? Throw himself in front of Enjolras?

But when he got there, the bathroom held no trace of Enjolras, including the first aid kit or bloody washcloth. Grantaire stood blinking, but Guelemer grunted and turned back around.

“Do call if you see him,” said Montparnasse, slapping a flier on an end table, and with a slam of the door, the two of them were gone.

Grantaire hurried over and deadlocked the door, then ran back to the bathroom. Enjolras was still not there, though the washcloth and the first aid supplies were. Furthermore, a rather inexplicable noise was coming from his room.

Enjolras was leaning out of Grantaire’s open window (the window that had been stuck since Grantaire had moved in), talking to a pigeon perching on his finger. Talking. To a pigeon. Perching on his finger. Like a damn Disney princess. Of course he was.

“Those guys were—?” asked Grantaire.

“Not my brothers,” said Enjolras as the pigeon flew off. He strode past Grantaire and toward the kitchenette. “Coffee?”

Grantaire had questions. Of course he did. He had a lot of questions. He had more questions than anything else at this point. It was a little paralyzing. So as Enjolras made coffee in Grantaire’s coffeemaker (or to be more precise, Feuilly’s coffeemaker) Grantaire ended up just curling up in a chair in the sitting room half of the room and watching. It was probably a more rewarding course of action than asking any of his questions, for that matter, because he was fairly sure that any answers he’d possibly get would just make his head hurt more. And Enjolras was extremely pretty.

Either Enjolras didn’t mind being ogled, or he simply wasn’t inclined to pay any attention to Grantaire (which seemed likely) because he attended the brewing of the coffee with silent attentiveness, frowning over some private contemplation. God, even the furrow between his eyebrows was beautiful.

When the coffeemaker beeped, Grantaire leapt up and fetched mugs rather than making Enjolras hunt for them. He held them out with a tentative smile, not unlike a puppy presenting a pair of slippers. Enjolras took the mugs without much of a change in his frown. Grantaire deflated slightly. Enjolras didn’t seem to notice that either; he just filled the mugs and handed one back to Grantaire, then went over to sit down on the ratty couch. Grantaire found himself feeling embarrassed about the state of the couch before he remembered that this was a filthy homeless man still covered in blood. Something about Enjolras’s dignified bearing meant you forgot that sort of thing.

They sat and drank their coffee in silence.

It was starting to get really, truly awkward. For Grantaire at least. Enjolras still was acting very much like Grantaire wasn’t even there. Grantaire was starting to go through his collection of questions, trying to come up with which one would have an answer that made his head hurt least.

When he finally made a choice and opened his mouth to voice it, however, what came out wasn’t actual words. It was more of a yelp, followed by jumping to his feet, seizing an empty beer bottle from the coffee table, and chucking it at the furry shadow currently darting behind the television.

“I swear I am gonna set my landlord on fire,” he growled, trying to regain some of his masculinity after the yelp. Enjolras, however, seemed more concerned with the rat.

“You idiot!” Enjolras snarled, and went down on hands and knees after the rat.

Right. Of course Grantaire is an idiot for attacking a rat in his own apartment. It was like the universe was searching for ways that Grantaire could be terrible despite saving the life of aforementioned filthy, bloody, gorgeous homeless man.

“It’s a rat,” Grantaire pointed out a little hysterically, as Enjolras coaxed the creature into his hand. Enjolras shot him a look that read clearly as “I know,” and “Please shut up.”

Only then did he notice the piece of paper rubberbanded around the rat’s middle, and this was officially too much, this was the breaking point. “Does the rat know the pigeon?” Grantaire blurted. And of all of the questions, of all of them he could possibly ask, that was not even in the running for least headachey.

“They have a mutual acquaintance,” said Enjolras, unfolding the paper, and yep, there it was, a throbbing right behind his eyeballs. Enjolras looked up. “I need you to do an errand for me.”

Grantaire wondered if Enjolras was being so imperious because he was used to giving orders, or because he could tell that Grantaire specifically would already do anything he asked. Both possibilities were equally hot. That is, worrying. Equally worrying.

While Grantaire was engaged in this form of thought, Enjolras scribbled something down and put a piece of paper in Grantaire’s hand.

And that was how Grantaire ended up in a back alley of Paris even he had never seen (or puked in) before, still hung over, reading the directions written for him in red ink on the back of a grocery receipt. He didn’t even know he had any red pens.

“And turn thrice widdershins,” he read from the receipt. “This is ridiculous. I’m ridiculous.” 

It wasn’t as though Enjolras had followed him, not as though he would know that Grantaire hadn’t gone completely through with what would definitely seem like a prank if not for all the blood and urgency. Plus then there was the fact that Enjolras was definitely not the type to play pranks, ever. 

He didn’t know, though, what else it could be, why he was standing in some weird, old-looking back alley even slummier than his usual slummy back alleys, turning thrice—“Counter clockwise, was it?” he muttered.

He almost turned around—not widdershins, but 180 degrees and probably toward a bar. Then he thought of Enjolras, sitting at home on Grantaire’s couch, picking at the bandage on his arm as he was doing when Grantaire left, and looking very inconvenienced but also… also really sad. And Grantaire cursed, dragged a hand down his face, and turned thrice widdershins.

“Hello?” he called without much hope into the darkness of the alley. “Uh, I’m Enjolras’s… I know Enjolras. Or, er, Enjolras sent me. On business. Hello?”

He waited. Nothing happened. Not that he thought anything would.

“Business of Lord Enjolras, eh? Well, this is an honor.”

Grantaire spun around to face the voice, looming with the brightness of the entrance to the alley behind him. He didn’t know how the guy got there. It was a dark young man with shaggy, curly hair, a long, rather piratical coat, and a disarming smile. _Lord_ Enjolras?

“I am the Marquis Courfeyrac. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He swept a bow and delivered a wink, and Grantaire raised an eyebrow.

“Grantaire. ‘Marquis Coufeyrac’? Isn’t there usually a ‘de’ somewhere in that sort of title?”

“I dropped the ‘de.’ I found it pretentious,” said the Marquis, straightening a lace flounce emerging from a coat sleeve.

“Pretentious,” said Grantaire. “Right.”

“You said you come on business?”

“Uh. Yeah. Enjoras… Lord Enjolras needs your help.”

“A lot of my Friends need my help,” the Marquis said, inspecting his fingernails. “But I can’t help everyone. And as much as I might still believe in the revolution, I can’t just drop everything like I used to. Now, if the Lord Enjolras has an offer to make, then—”

“He said to tell you Combeferre is dead,” Grantaire interrupted.

Courfeyrac looked up from his nails, his face paling, all his performance breaking like a dropped glass.

“I’ll come.”


	2. Chapter 2

Grantaire was expecting to lead the Marquis back to his place, but the Marquis did not seem much interested in his guidance. He swept off down the alley, giving Grantaire no choice but to follow.

"Hey… Hey, my apartment is this way. And we should really hurry because if my roommate comes back to a stranger in our place I honestly do not know what will happen. Are you going to-? Hey!" 

The Marquis stopped so suddenly Grantaire nearly ran into the back of him. He watched befuddled as the man bent and pulled up a manhole cover.

"Come on then!" Courfeyrac said cheerily, and dropped through. 

Grantaire seriously considered just turning around and heading back to his apartment. Apparently this guy thought he was too good for things like directions, and Grantaire really, really did need to get back before Feuilly got home. He struggled briefly but eventually groaned, mussed his hair in frustration, and jumped down after him.

Right into a shallow slosh of water that soaked straight through Grantaire's shoes. He wrinkled his nose, but it was just runoff water anyway, even if it did smell a bit stagnant. The only light came from the open manhole above them and grates further ahead, barely enough to see. The Marquis was turned away from him and heading down the dark passage like he hadn't noticed Grantaire's hesitation, but he hadn't made nearly the headway he ought if he'd started right away. Grantaire took a deep breath and slogged after him.

"Uh, we are going back to Enjolras, right?"

"Of course," says Courfeyrac. "I just have an errand to run first. Very important, can't wait. Hurry up!" Grantaire hurried as instructed, grumbling some. After a few minutes of sloshing in the dark, he spoke up.

"You called him Lord Enjolras before?"

"Yes, I did. Never call him that to his face, though, he hates it. If he had his way he'd go by 'citizen.'"

Grantaire laughed a little. "'Citizen Enjolras'? Like back in the revolution?"

"He's a very revolutionary soul, our Enjolras." Courfeyrac pulled down a rusty ladder from the darkness above them with a teeth-rattling screech, and began climbing. "This way," he called behind him. 

Grantaire hoisted himself up onto the bottom rung, trying to shake a little bit of the water out of his shoes before continuing. "Okay," he said after a minute. "But there. There aren't any lords anymore. He is French, right? He seemed French."

"He is," said Courfeyrac, "most extremely French. I hope you're all right with heights."

"We are actually underground right now," he said. "I'm pretty sure I'll be oh my god."

There was a great flash like a floodlight being switched on in his face. Grantaire recoiled, throwing his arm over his eyes, and rattling the ladder a little dangerously with the movement. When the floodlight did not switch off, he hesitantly lowered his arm and squinted at the brightness. There was a brick wall in front of him, illuminated by daylight. He looked down, wondering if maybe now he could see the sewer beneath them better.

He couldn't see the sewer. What he could see was pavement, some ten or fifteen stories beneath them. He made a strangled noise and clutched the rusty ladder.

"Not good with heights, I take it," said the Marquis from above him. 

"I am fine with heights," Grantaire gasped, "when they show up where they're supposed to be."

"'Supposed to' is such a limiting phrase," said the Marquis. "Better keep climbing. We have to get back to your place before your roommate gets home, remember."

Grantaire cursed the man under his breath, but kept climbing. It was an indecent distance before they ended up topping the roof-- _if you're going to bend space and time why not do it a little bit closer?_ he found himself thinking blurrily as he crawled up over the edge. 

"Courfeyrac! What a delight to see you!" came a voice in front of them. 

"The delight is my own," returned the Marquis. Grantaire rolled over from his stomach to his back and squinted over at the two as he pulled himself to his feet.

Courfeyrac was bent chivalrously over the outstretched hand of a giggling young man with long, wispy blond hair, tangled with tattered feathers and bits of fluff. He was, in fact, covered in feathers. Not like a feather boa, like a Mardi Gras costume, but like he'd painted himself with glue and then rolled in pigeons. The feathers were many different shades of gray and white and brown, long frayed feathers and short fuzzy feathers and down feathers, and a bunch of feathers that looked like they'd been woven or sewn into some sort of capelet around the man's shoulders, upon which were perched actual birds, a pigeon on one shoulder and two sparrows on the other. All of the feathers were about as clean as one would think feathers gathered from city birds would be.

"So who's the... Friend?" said the feather man, turning up the last word into a question in a way that Grantaire couldn't decide was suggestive or insulting. 

Courfeyrac shook his head. "Enjolras' friend," he said, and okay, that was almost definitely insulting. "I assume you heard about the Musain?" the blonde nodded gravely. "I heard Enjolras had been pursued, I suppose I assumed more made it out than just he. But he tells me Combeferre…"

The man gasped. "He didn't--?" Now Courfeyrac nodded. The blond pressed his hands over his mouth, looking ready to cry. Grantaire didn't want to intrude, so just stood off near the edge of the roof, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. His nervous movement, however, drew the attention of the man in the feathers.

"I'm so sorry, I don't mean to be rude. I'm Jehan," he says, quickly wiping at the corners of his eyes and smiling.

"Grantaire," says Grantaire, nodding.

"Charmed. Do you like poetry?"

"No time for that," put in Courfeyrac briskly. "Jehan, my dear, I do wonder if you could do a favor for me. As a Friend," he said, laying a hand on Jehan's arm and smiling winsomely.

"Well of course," said Jehan smiling back and blushing. "You've done enough for me." His forehead creased. "It's not… terrible, is it?"

"No, of course not. It's perfectly simple," said Courfeyrac soothingly. He reached into the pocket of his long coat, and produced a little silver filigree box. Grantaire didn't know much about antiques, but it looked pretty old and expensive. "I only need you to hang onto this for a while."

Jehan's eyes glinted. "Is that--!"

"It's just for safety's sake," said the Marquis.

"I always wanted to see one. Oh, the box is very pretty. I hope I don't have to use it of course, but…"

“Knew I could count on you," smiled Courfeyrac. "It's only for a little while, don't worry. Now we really must be on our way. I'm going to have to get Enjolras to the floating Market." 

Jehan nodded. "Good luck," he said, and stood waving them on, the birds on his shoulders cooing goodbye as the Marquis headed for a tiny door next to a cluster of smoke stacks and Grantaire followed.

"That guy was?" said Grantaire as he followed the Marquis down a little spiral staircase.

"You don't want to know," Courfeyrac answered brightly. 

"I dunno, he seemed nice."

"He's very nice," said Courfeyrac. "One of the nicest fellows you'll meet. But you misunderstand. You don't want to know anything." He cast a piercing glance over his shoulder. "Just hope you never get the chance to thank me."

\---

Enjolras was sitting on the couch, picking his bandage, looking inconvenienced but significantly cleaner, when Grantaire opened the door. "Your roommate is home," he reported.

Grantaire looked back startled at Feuilly's door. "Oh man, what did he say? He wasn't expecting you and-"

"He didn't really notice me," Enjolras answered. 

"Wow, must've been dead on his feet," said Grantaire. Enjolras did not appear to hear him. Upon seeing the Marquis behind Grantaire Enjolras rose, relief in his face.

"You came."

"Of course I came," he said, coming forward and gripping Enjolras by the arm in greeting. "I heard the Musain was attacked, of course, but when I heard the Patron Minette gang was still after you, I assumed the others… Combeferre--?"

"Killed. Everyone was killed. I was the only one who escaped." Courfeyrac's grip tightened on Enjolras's arm. "I mean, not everyone. Our outside contacts are fine--that is, unless anyone's come after you?" he added, tensing. Courfeyrac shook his head and Enjolras relaxed. "Good. No, it was just everyone at House Musain at the time. Aiming for me and Comeferre, I'm sure, and… I was gone. I came back, and…" He closed his eyes, clenched his jaw, swallowed.

"Do you know who did it?" the Marquis asked.

"You mean who hired them? Anyone might have. Anyone with something to lose from the freeing and unification of the baronies, which is quite a few people. But we were preparing for war, not… not a cloak-and-dagger slaughter job."

"You assume too much honor in your enemies. You always have."

"I assume nothing," Enjolras snapped. "I just didn't assume this. You will help?" 

"Of course," said Courfeyrac. "You're my friend."

Enjolras nodded and then suddenly turned to the gaping Grantaire. "Thank you for your help. I changed the sheets on your bed when I cleaned up. We'll be going."

"What? Wait," sputtered Grantaire. "If you're in trouble, I'd. I'd like to help." He hadn't understood most of what the two men had just said, but someone had killed their friends and were trying to kill Enjolras, and okay, that was terrifying, but when he'd spoken of "freeing and uniting the baronies," his eyes had flashed in a way that had made Grantaire stand up a little straighter even if he had no idea what Enjolras was talking about. And Grantaire knew that if they left, he'd probably never see this man again, and that… that he couldn't do. It was crazy. He was being crazy. But he couldn't imagine letting him go now. "I want to help," he said again.

Enjolras gave a pointed look around the flat, dim and disheveled with more than a few empty booze bottles he hadn't gotten around to recycling (Feuilly was gone working too much to clean up Grantaire's messes, I'll get it, Grantaire was always promising, I'll get it tomorrow I promise). Grantaire had never been that self-conscious about it before.

"You?" asked Enjolras doubtfully.

"Me," countered Grantaire, frowning. "I did save your life, remember."

Enjolras's face softened a little at that. "Yes, you did," he said. "And I thanked you." Grantaire would scoff, but it was obvious that this man's thanks were not easily earned. "But now I have difficult and delicate tasks to undertake for which I don't need… more help," he finished diplomatically. "Goodbye Grantaire." And Enjolras walked out the door.

The Marquis Courfeyrac smiled apologetically. "He's not kidding about difficult and delicate. Dangerous, too. You don't want a slice of this, my dear. You're actually lucky he didn't try to recruit you." He touched his forehead in salutation. "Farewell." And then he was gone too.

Lucky? Grantaire supposed he probably was, put like that. He didn't feel it. He mostly felt sort of lost.

\---

It happened quickly after that.

Just before he was about to go in to work at the convenience store for the day, he got a call about his work hours being reduced. Again. He answered, but his boss apparently thought she was talking to the machine, because she went on talking without pause as if she couldn't hear him. Stupid busted phone. One more thing to spend money on, then. He changed back out of his work uniform and spent the night emptying one of the bottles on the coffee table. He spent the night in drunken dreams of running from something, something huge and terrible, through the dark.

He woke up on the couch--again--to Feuilly opening the front door coming home from work.

"Hey man, sorry I missed you yesterday. I was, uh. Running errands." Feuilly stopped in the doorway, looked blankly directly at Grantaire, then blinked and focused his eyes. "Right. Hi. Grantaire."

"That's me," agreed Grantaire. "Man, they're working you really hard. Get some rest." He clapped Feuilly on the arm on the way to the kitchen. "Don't let the bedbugs bite, dude."

After a large glass of water and two large mugs of coffee, Grantaire, reminded of Enjolras' disdain of the other day, made some attempt to straighten the sitting room, filling the recycling tub with bottles and taking it downstairs, just to go upstairs and discover that having cleared away the clutter of bottles served to reveal the clutter of discarded fast food bags and then of scattered magazines and bits of charcoal and pencil and eraser, as well as a small cache of blending stubs. God, this place really was terrible. Feuilly was a saint. Here was hoping none of his coworkers informed him that one could ask for more from a roommate than "usually too drunk at night to object to your weird hours". 

To reward himself for a cleaning job well done and a hangover banished, Grantaire went for lunch--which meant a sandwich and two pint beers--but the waitress kept walking right past his table. He had to go up to the bar to get his order, and even then all but shout at the barman. Nobody got a tip.

He spent the afternoon in the park sketching (with a found sketchbook and charcoal) and trying to forget what had happened the day before, or at least trying to feel as normal as possible. 

So much for that. 

He met Bahorel at their usual place for day-off drinks at five, but when he sat down next to Bahorel at the mostly empty bar, his friend smiled and stuck out his hand for a shake.

"Hey there. Bahorel," he introduced himself. Grantaire shook his head as he tried without much effect to wave down the waitress.

"I've had a weird couple of days, man," Grantaire said. "I'm not in the mood for games."

"Then I won't play any," said Bahorel with a raised eyebrow. "What's your name, stranger?"

"Damn it, Bahorel, I mean it, I'm not in the mood!"

Bahorel watched in silence then as Grantaire tried desperately to order a whiskey and failed. He finally gave up, head in his hands. Bahorel sipped his drink quietly. After a few minutes, Grantaire looked up again.

"Okay, if you laugh I swear I am never coming to get you out of jail again, but… do you really not know me?"

"Oh, hi," said Bahorel, surprised, as if he'd forgotten Grantaire was there. "No, I don't know you. Are you trying to start something?" He set his drink down and there was good old Bahorel's bright eagerness for a fight. But no recognition. Grantaire sighed and stood, pulling his coat back on.

"No," he said. "I'm not." And he left.

\---

He woke on Feuilly's day off, and found his roommate sitting on the couch reading. He stood and looked at Feuilly for a few minutes. Feuilly did not look up. 

There was a knock on the door. Grantaire jumped. It's those overdressed menaces, he thought, his heart hammering, and looked around for something to barricade the door with. But Feuilly just put a bookmark in his book and went to answer the door.

"Hey, I'm here to see the room?"

"Yeah, you're right on time. Come on in."

Grantaire's heart calmed down, but promptly sank, and he excused himself silently. By the time Feuilly was pushing open the door to Grantaire's room, Grantaire was coming out, his bookbag loaded down.

"I'm sorry about the state of it. I… guess I must have been using it as a storage room," came Feuilly's confused voice behind him as Grantaire walked out the front door.


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn’t as upsetting as you’d think, getting kicked out of a life he’d never had much use for, even when he tried to get some money out of an ATM and got his card rejected. (He wasn’t that surprised and there wasn’t much money in there anyway.) It was a little more upsetting to be so thoroughly ignored on the street. Grantaire had thought he was used to people passing on the Paris streets without noticing you, but this was another animal entirely. Not a single eye met his. People looked through him, stepped around him without registering his presence at all. He didn’t even exist to any of them.

Grantaire didn’t realize where he was going until he found himself standing on the same spot of pavement where he had found Enjolras two nights ago. He’d been drunk enough then that he wouldn’t be sure at this being the same spot if it weren’t for the smear of blood in the dust which, unlike the sheets on what was once his bed, hadn’t been cleaned away. Grantaire’d had a couple swigs from his flask, enough to calm him down, so he just stood looking at the smear with his hands in his coat pockets, the people coming and going parting around him.

“Spare a euro?” Grantaire looked up. It was a young man with a dirty wool hat pulled down around his ears and an even dirtier coat. Grantaire shook his head.

“Sorry. Not much on the best of days, but none today. Unless you want my defunct bank card.” 

“That’s rough,” said the man with sympathy. “Hope your luck improves.”

Grantaire nodded in absent thanks, but then startled. His hand shot out and grabbed the man’s sleeve. “Wait. You can see me?”

“Sure,” the man said, eyeing Grantaire’s hold on him. “My eyes are fine. Well, not if you ask Joly…”

Grantaire looked around. People walked around both of them without notice. He looked back at the man in the hat, who was looking back at him very warily and seemed to be judging the merit of sudden movements.

“Do you know the Floating Market?” Grantaire blurted.

The man looked at him for a moment and seemed about to deny all accusations and call Grantaire crazy, but then gave it up. His shoulders slumped. He sighed. “Temple and arch, I didn’t need this.” 

“Yes! Yes, ‘Temple and arch,’ I think Enjolras said that!” Grantaire said eagerly. “Do you know him? I need to find him.”

“You’re looking for Lord Enjolras, huh?” he said, sizing Grantaire up. 

“Yeah, I am,” Grantaire replied. “Can you take me to him?”

The man glanced around furtively, took off his wool cap to scratch at a prematurely bald head with an expression of great dismay, then finally turned around, heading toward an alley. He looked over his shoulder once to beckon Grantaire. “Well, come on, then,” he said. Grantaire came on.

The bald man led him into a dark alley and down a set of broken cement stairs, through a sublevel door. The passage behind it was longer than Grantaire expected, and almost too dark for him to even see his feet. He felt as though he were making Dante’s descent into Hell. And when his guide knocked a staccato password on something metal and a door screeched open in front of them, the illusion was complete.

He followed the man into a huge room, much larger than it seemed should have fit beneath the building under which the set of stairs had led. It was lit with red flickering campfires everywhere, that were dazzling after the tunnel, and it smelled overpoweringly of smoke and char and the cooking of strange meats.

“Go get Lord Rat-Speaker,” said the bald man to a shadowy person dressed in tatters. The order was obeyed, just as a small boy dressed in similar rags approached. Whenever Grantaire had read in books that someone was dressed in rags, he’d assumed ragged clothes, normal wear so old and worn as to be good only for rags. But in this case, it was quite literal; the boy seemed to have fashioned apparel from oil rags and dishtowels and dropcloths, and he carried it off better and more confidently than Grantaire had ever a new suit of clothes. Pinned on his chest was an old-looking but still bright tricolor cockade like people wore in historical paintings, a splash of color amid the drab.

The boy stalked over, intent and unfriendly eyes on Grantaire. It was then that Grantaire noticed the weapon in his fist, a long pointed shiv of glass with a fur-wrapped handle.

“Hey, kid, watch out with that,” he said nervously. The boy didn’t answer. He stopped in front of Grantaire, paused for a moment, then without warning, kicked him viciously in the shin. Grantaire cursed and jerked up his leg out of the reach of little feet, but while he was standing only on one the boy lunged forward and caught him in the back of the knee. And so, when what was presumably the Lord Rat-Speaker came over, Grantaire was on his back, wheezing for breath, with a small boy’s foot on his chest and a glass shard pointed at his throat.

The man who had come over also wore rags, though of a more traditional type, and over them what appeared to be an old doctor’s lab coat that would never see white again, fraying at the hems and patched at the elbows with two rough rag and leather shapes. Over the lower half of his face was a surgeon’s mask which looked so dirty Grantaire thought it was probably more of a hazard to breathe through it than not.

“Who’s this?” he demanded of the bald man. “Bossuet, whoever this is he’s not meant to be here.”

Bossuet looked miserable. “He’s from the Upside,” he admitted. “But he was asking about the Floating Market and Lord Enjolras, I didn’t know what to do!”

The man regarded Grantaire with dismay—or what was probably dismay. It was hard to tell with the mask covering most of his face. Grantaire tried not to fidget under the long scrutiny and the knife still at his throat.

“So you’re from the daylight,” the man said at last.

“Uh. Yeah,” replied Grantaire.

“In your opinion—” began the man. Bossuet groaned. “In your opinion,” the man continued, undeterred, would you consider my complexion at all ashy?” He pulled his mask down a little so Grantaire could see his freckled cheeks.

“My eyesight is fine, Joly,” Bossuet assured him. Joly ignored this, keeping expectant eyes on Grantaire.

“Um. Your complexion looks okay,” Grantaire said.

Joly sighed, clearly unsatisfied with this answer. “It feels ashy,” he said pulling a shard of mirror out of the pocket of the doctor’s coat and inspecting his face in it.

“You don’t have the bubonic plague,” said Bossuet patiently.

“Oh, it’s all right, I don’t mind,” Joly said. “It’s an honor to work with the esteemed rats. I don’t mind getting the plague.”

“Okay, but you don’t have the plague.”

“Uh,” put in Grantaire. Both looked down at him.

“Should I kill him?” volunteered the boy. The Lord Rat-Speaker hesitated, looking much less decided on the subject than made Grantaire comfortable.

“No,” Grantaire said hurredly. “No, definitely not. Why are we killing me? Tell him no. Please. Please? I’ll just go, all right? I’ll get out of your hair. Don’t want to kill me, big mess on the floor.”

Joly opened his mouth to say something, but before he could make his pronouncement there was a shout from the other end of the hall.

“Announcing Master Myriel!” All three people around him hastily spun around, and then threw themselves to the ground, the boy and the Lord Rat-Speaker first, and Bossuet after a moment’s confused pause. The whole room was prostrating themselves before a large brown rat that was scurrying in a surprisingly stately way down an aisle of bowing figures.

“Master Myriel,” greeted Joly, pulling the surgical mask down off his face. The rat chittered something, and Joly gestured to Grantaire. “A spy seeking the location of Lord Enjolras. We were about to dispose of him.” 

Grantaire sat up. “I swear, I’m not a—”

“Sssshh!” the boy said, pulling him back down by the neck of his t-shirt.

The rat—Master Myriel, apparently—chittered something else. Joly looked to Grantaire. “He says he thinks he recognizes you.”

Grantaire brightened in sudden realization. “Wait, yeah, are you the one I threw a beer bottle at?” Somone gasped. Grantaire did not notice. “Yeah, it’s me, it was my flat. I helped out Enjolras—I mean, Lord Enjolras!”

The rat turned back to Joly and squeaked something that sounded decisive. He inclined his little head toward Grantaire, and… nodded? Did the rat just nod? And… well, it was hard to read expressions on a rat face, and Grantaire wasn’t entirely sure what a benevolent smile looked like even on a human, yet he had the inescapable feeling that he was indeed receiving a benevolent smile from a rat. Then Master Myriel scurried off through a hole in the wall. 

“You apparently speak the truth and are to be taken to the Floating Market,” Joly reported, snapping the surgical mask back into place. The boy put away his glass shiv in a sash at his waist, to Grantaire’s great relief. “Bossuet,” said Joly uncertainly, turning to the other man, “Could you—?”

Bossuet cut him off with a shake of his head. “Are you kidding? Through that neighborhood? Les Gobelins? I’d get us both killed.” Joly gave a nod that looked like a concession of this as fact.

“I can go!” volunteered the rag-clad boy. “I’m plenty scary enough for the trip.” Both Bossuet and Joly looked doubtful, and Grantaire, who thought the little kid was scary enough for anyone, was made very apprehensive about what this ‘trip’ entailed.

“It’s not to be taken lightly, Gavroche,” Bossuet warned.

“Yes, be careful,” agreed Joly. Gavroche made a scornful noise.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about me!” He turned to Grantaire, who was standing up finally and dusting himself off. “Come on then, M’sieur, it’s a long way.” He turned and headed off toward a dark archway on the other side of the hall. Grantaire started to follow him, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

“You be careful too,” said Joly, with quite the concern in his eyes for someone who had nearly ordered Grantaire to his death. His solemnity was also not making Grantaire feel any better about the market. Bossuet, on the other hand, was smiling in a feeble, encouraging way that was possibly worse.

“And say hello to Enjolras for us,” said Bossuet.

“Yes,” added Joly. “tell him his friends still stand with him.”

Grantaire looked at the two of them and saw in their eyes much of what was probably in his own three days ago—the admiration, the awe—when he watched Enjolras walk out his front door. He makes everyone feel like this, Grantaire thought. He was strangely proud, but also felt an odd pain. Grantaire was just one of the adulating throng. 

That shouldn’t disappoint him the way it did.

“Come on, M’sieur Upside!” came Gavroche’s cheerful call. “We don’t have time to waste!” Grantaire suspected the moniker was not a respectful one, which was backed up by Bossuet’s smirk—and probably Joly’s, hidden behind his mask. He waved an awkward goodbye to them and trotted through the watching figures and smoky campfires, to where Gavroche waited.

“Sorry, they had something else they wanted to say to me. I’m Grantaire, by the way,” he said as they started off into the dark tunnel. Gavroche is lighting the way with a candle sheltered in a bottle, which provides just enough light to cast weird glimmers on the damp walls. They’re in the sewers, Grantaire is fairly sure.

“Gavroche. I’m a rat-speaker. Sorry about the knife and everything,” said Gavroche brightly. ‘Knife’ was a generous description, thought Grantaire. “It’s my job.”

Grantaire smiled at the thought. “What, you’re the Lord Rat Speaker’s bodyguard?”

“That’s right,” said Gavroche, nodding. “So you got mixed up with Monsieur Enjolras, huh?” He grinned as though he thought Grantaire showed exceptionally good taste in people with whom to get mixed up.

“Yeah, him and some… marquis. Courfeyrac, it was.”

Gavroche’s eyes lit up. “Marquis Courfeyrac! Yeah, I know the Marquis. I’m his Friend,” he added meaningfully.

“That’s cool,” said Grantaire, since the boy clearly expected a response of some kind. They walked in silence for a moment. Grantaire stuffed his hands in his pocket and blew hair out of his eyes. “So you’re a rat speaker, too?”

“Yep,” answered Gavroche.

“You were the youngest one in there, I think,” said Grantaire, since he thought Gavroche would like that. As he expected the little boy puffed out his chest. 

“Youngest rat speaker in Paris,” said Gavroche proudly. “And I get trusted with solo errands all the time.”

“Awesome,” said Grantaire. “You, uh. You got any family down here?”

“Some sisters,” said Gavroche carelessly. “Long time ago.” Grantaire’s heart panged.

“Yeah? What happened to them?”

“Misplaced them,” Gavroche replied. “Don’t really remember them. It was a long time ago,” he said again.

“Right,” Grantaire said. Gavroche did not seem to be participating in the awkward moment Grantaire was having, but he moved on quickly anyway to dispel it. “Where did you get the pin?” he said, nodding to the tricolor cockade he’d noticed before. “It looks old.” 

The boy grinned again, proud of his ornament. “Enjolras bought it for me at the floating market! It’s just like his.” Grantaire tried to remember Enjolras wearing such a cockade, but there’d been such a mess of clothes on him that such a detail was impossible to recall.

“People really seem to like Enjolras around here,” he observed. 

“Enjolras wants to free and unite the baronies,” Gavroche said matter-of-factly.

“So I hear. Where’s this Floating Market, then? Fellas back there seemed spooked. And hey, what’s a Floating Market anyway? Like does it actually—” He described a mysterious suspended something in the air with his hands. “You know, float?” 

Gavroche gave him a look of great patience with someone very stupid. Grantaire felt that after everything he’d seen, his question had been reasonable. “No, floating means it moves around,” Gavroche said. “And it’s not the market they’re scared of, it’s the place it’s being held.”

“What, _Avenue des Gobelins_?” said Grantaire, recalling what Bossuet had said with a frown. “But that’s just a bunch of restaurants and things.”

Gavroche gave him another withering look, and this one, Grantaire didn’t feel inclined to challenge.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is weird right now and writing is slow. Mostly it happens in bits on a scratchpad by my register at work, to be transcribed in the evenings if I remember to clean out my pockets. So thank you for your patience! <3
> 
> As we get further into the story I honestly cannot stress enough how much you REALLY SHOULD read Neverwhere first, or at least listen to the audio play, just because they're both much cleverer than this silly blow-by-blow rehash. The good news is that now we've gone and gotten Grantaire to Paris Below, the characters can spread out and do their own things a bit now in addition to the plodding plot retelling. ;)

The route they took led into the catacombs, which Grantaire didn't think were actually supposed to connect to the sewers. He'd never been creeped out by the catacombs; the bones were dead, the skulls were empty, they didn't mean any harm. He was much more intimidated by the travelers that were slowly joining him and Gavroche on their trek. Gavroche took out his shiv as soon as the population increased, and actually growled at anyone who got too close.

"So how far do we have until--" Grantaire began, but broke off when they turned a corner. 

The passage sloped suddenly downward, and if Grantaire had thought it was dark already, it was nothing compared to the darkness in front of them. The skulls in the walls no longer looked empty and benign, or even quite human. They were laughing now, laughing and cruel, and he felt something watching out of the dark eye sockets. He thought there were more sizes than there should be too, skulls both too large and too small, and although it was hard to tell by the meager light of the candle, he thought he could see tiny pointed horns emerging from some of them.

"Where are we?" he whispered. Gavroche wrapped his little hand more tightly around his knife.

" _Les Gobelins,_ " he answered. Around them, the other travelers who hadn't already drawn their weapons were doing so now, before preparing themselves and then venturing into the dark. Grantaire held back, and even Gavroche didn't look too impatient to proceed into the dark, though he was standing with his bravest wide-planted posture. Out of the darkness came… sounds. Distant squeaks and growls and scuffling that Grantaire couldn't be sure he was really hearing.

"What's… down there?" he asked. Gavroche cut him a look.

"The Goblins," he repeated.

Grantaire looked at him stupidly, because it was better than looking into the dark.

"And the market… is in _there?_ " he asked incredulously.

"No," said Gavroche. "It's on the other side."

"Can't we go around?" Grantaire suggested. He would have felt a little silly for his hesitancy if the passage were not so objectively goddamn terrifying. 

"You could, but the market wouldn't be there," said a voice behind Grantaire. "You have to go through."

Grantaire jumped at the voice and spun around to face the speaker. She was a slight girl, looking younger than Grantaire, all compact muscle, her long dark hair hanging into her painted eyes, dressed in patchwork leathers and wearing a knife on her belt and a flashlight strapped to her wrist.

"That doesn't make any sense," pointed out Grantaire, less because he thought it would do any good and more because it ought to be said.

"Then don't go," said the girl.

"We have to, apparently," replied Grantaire, perhaps a little piquantly. "I need to get to the Market."

"I'll go with you," said the girl. "Safety in numbers." She looked Grantaire up and down. "You're from Paris Above."

"Yeah. Getting the rat-speaker tour," he joked weakly. She looked down at Gavroche and raised her eyebrows. Gavroche puffed up to his most impressive size and stuck out his jaw defiantly.

"An honor of an escort," she said, with not a speck of irony in her tone. She drew the knife at her belt, and Gavroche raised his in anticipative defense, but she just nodded toward the dark passage. "Shall we go?"

"I don't have a knife," Grantaire protested.

"It wouldn't help you," said the girl, starting toward the passage.

"The both of you have yours out!" he said. She gave him a flat look over her shoulder.

"It wouldn't help _you_ ," she clarified.

Gavroche fixed his grip on his shard of glass and took Grantaire's hand reassuringly. Grantaire smiled down at him and the three of them went forth into the dark.

The darkness overtook them immediately. Grantaire's candle guttered and went out, to a small noise of dismay from Grantaire, and maybe from Gavroche too. Grantaire held Gavroche's hand tighter.

All about them were sounds, the sounds that Grantaire could barely hear back in the light-and that seemed significant, like the noises were conducted through the darkness. There was the feeling of small _things_ running by his feet, skimming his ankles and bumping his legs. He would have thought of rats if it weren't for how hard the young rat-speaker next to him was holding his hand. And then sometimes there was the sound and the warm wet air of breathing, from lungs bigger than a rat's lung, bigger than his.

There was a sudden scratchy cackle right next to his ear. Grantaire cursed and ducked away.

"Keep forward!" snapped the girl in front of them. "Keep moving! Don't run or they'll jump!"

He ground his teeth and continued marching on with long, hasty strides. When something swishing past him slashed a line of sharp pain along his arm, he only hissed and redoubled his effort. 

In the back of his mind he was aware that the punishing pace they were going must be hard on Gavroche's shorter legs, but the terror kept him going relentlessly, and kept Gavroche going too.

A voice cried out and Grantaire swerved again, but this time the voice came from Gavroche. 

"It bit me," he gasped. "It _tasted_ me."

"I've got you," said Grantaire, though Gavroche's voice had sounded steadier than Grantaire's did now. "I've got you, don't worry." But after a moment Gavroche's hand started to pull away. He'd have thought it was Gavroche trying to get away, except that his fingernails were digging into Grantaire's hand. And he was screaming.

It was only for a moment. Then Gavroche's hand pulled out of Grantaire's despite his grip, and as soon as their fingers were no longer touching, the scream stopped. Maybe the dark which so well conducted the terrible sounds around them refused to transmit Gavroche's voice. Maybe he was just out of arm's reach. Maybe.

"Gavroche!" he yelled, swiping at the empty air. There was no answer.

"Keep moving!" said the girl again.

They did not go much further before distant light appeared, as though the awful passage had done its job and now had no use for them. It grew to the surprisingly bright glow of candlelight surprisingly fast, just as fast as the light had faded on the other side. When they emerged, the candle Grantaire was still somehow holding flickered to life again.

Grantaire had continued moving out of the dizzying fear that had held him in the passage, but now that he was out in the light he was horrified that they had moved on without Gavroche. He turned around immediately to head back into the blackness, but there was silent nothing behind him except a shadowy space in the catacombs, the dumb, hollow-eyed skulls staring blanky at nothing in the flickering candlelight. He turned back around to see others walking on without looking back.

"There was nothing we could have done," said the girl. Her tone was matter-of-fact but when he looked at her, her eyes were not unfeeling. "The goblins took him as toll. If you had gone after him they would only have taken you as well." 

A cold, stale-smelling breeze blew from behind Grantaire, and something like a small, bright leaf fluttered past him on the ground. The girl stopped it with her toe, then bent and picked it up. It was Gavroche's pin, the old-fashioned cockade. She handed it to Grantaire. He stood, staring at it in his open palm.

"When he was taken, you called his name-Gavroche?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Grantaire. He looked up from the cockade. "Why?"

Her brows were furrowed, but if the name provoked some thought in her she did not share it. She shook her head. "I hope you can make Gavroche's sacrifice worth it. Come on. The Floating Market is this way."

 

\---

 

Courfeyrac and Enjolras stood before a boarded up door, neither making any move to enter.

"You don't have to go in, if you don't want, I suppose," said the Marquis. "I could always do it."

Enjolras shook his head and, without another word, took Courfeyrac's hand then stepped forward and put his other hand flat on the door.

There was a light that enveloped both men, and then they were standing in a large, dim room with paintings lining every white wall.

"It's been a long time since I've been back," said the Marquis quietly. 

"Not that long," said Enjolras, leading them toward a particular painting. "And you've been busy with the revolution's work."

"Among other things," the Marquis added in his most tactful tone. Enjolras frowned. He turned around to say something before both of their eyes fell on the same painting at the same moment. They both stopped.

The painting was not large, in a simple wooden frame; it depicted a small room of wooden walls, wooden floor, wooden tables, wooden chairs. Old oil lamps burned on the walls, and a few bottles, empty and half-empty, sat on the tables. The room was empty, but still looked as welcoming as it always had, as though the occupants had only stepped out for a moment and would be returning shortly.

"Most of us are fine," Courfeyrac reminded his friend. "So many of us are all right. Remember that."

"And many of us aren't," Enjolras snapped. "You weren't here, you didn't see-the bodies, the blood." His jaw tightened and twitched. "I had to clean them up. It wasn't like a battlefield. They didn't get a chance to fight." He swallowed. "They were surprised. They shouldn't have been able to be surprised. Some of them lay were they were killed, in the middle of the floor or still sitting at a table. But some of them were… played with." He shook his head. "We were expecting armies, not the Patron Minette."

"The question is who hired the Patron Minette," said the Marquis. "They don't have a horse in the race, but they wouldn't do the work for free." He paused. "And… how they got in."

"You know very well it isn't how they got in, but who let them in," said Enjolras, rubbing a hand over his face. "My father would be outraged if he could see this. He'd tell me I should have expected as much for letting the opening secrets out of our family line. He'd have never seen this place breached."

"He'd have never seen the baronies fall," Courfeyrac said sternly. "Your father was exactly the kind of old bastard you're trying to overthrow. You gave opening to the people. This was a stronghold even without a magic lock on the front door-it is not your fault that it was attacked, that you were betrayed."

Enjolras turned away from the painting of the empty room. "We need to get Combeferre's files," he said. "They're the only thing still worth having in here." Courfeyrac said nothing as he followed to a painting at the end of the row. Enjolras took Courfeyrac's hand again, and the world vanished into light.

 

\---

 

_"And you've tried the Arenes de Lutece?"_

_"Oh yes, there was a Roman theater company practicing for a performance. They said they'd seen him," says the young girl talking to Combeferre. He brightens. "Yesterday," she adds with a dark-eyed glare. "You know himself, he could be to Cannes by now."_

_Despite his anxiety and frustration, Combeferre laughs, low and dismayed, running a hand backward through his hair. "Yes. He probably saw a passerby to convert to the cause and just followed them down the road, no mind to the hour or where he was going. Again." He sighs deeply and leans forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, looking the girl in the eye earnestly. She is thin and lanky but small for her fourteen or fifteen years, underfed but strong with sheer spiky defiance. She crosses bony elbows over her chest. "Try again, Azelma," says Combeferre to her. "Can you? Please? I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. I know you're tired."_

_Azelma flips her long, dark hair over her shoulder. "Who says I'm tired?" she says. "I can tromp all over the Below for the cause just the same as Captain Enjolras does."_

_Combeferre smiles and pushes his glasses back up his nose as he stands and goes to a shelf to take something down. There is a knock at the door of his office. "Thank you, Azelma," he says. "And this time, do you think you could pay a visit to Cour-to the Marquis? It's been a while, but I think he should be warned too," he adds, more to himself than to her. The door knocks again. "Will you get that?"_

_Azelma goes over and opens the door. A long, strange, silver-gleaming blade swings out and slashes her across the throat._

_Combeferre is leaping over to slam the door before she has even hit the floor. He knows, as he does, that it is no use._

\---

 

The study they had stepped through to had been cleaned of carnage, but still had the feel of death to it; it might have been in some barely-detectable lingering scent of blood, or the cold staleness of air that followed the Patron Minette wherever they went. Or maybe it was just such disorder in the office of a man who had never let a single paper go out of place while he was alive.

At any rate it made Courfeyrac shiver while he waited for Enjolras to dig through the great oak desk. After a couple of minutes Enjolras grunted in frustration and Courfeyrac returned his attention to his friend.

"Don't you know where he keeps-kept them?" he frowned.

Enjolras shook his head. "I never had to consult them. He kept track of those things. I never-" He closed his eyes.

"Hey, it's fine," said Courfeyrac, placing a comforting hand on Enjolras's arm. "It's fine. We'll find them."

"They're here. If I could just-" Courfeyrac left his hand on Enjolras's arm as his friend squeezed his eyes tighter shut.

They stand there for a long moment like that, frozen and silent. Then Enjolras's eyes opened. He stepped away from Courfeyrac and toward the desk, reaching down to pull open a drawer. The bottom of the inside of the drawer swung open on a hinge, and Enjolras lifted out a dark-stained wooden ball, set with metal contacts and glass lenses.

"You were always a much better opener than I," said the Marquis.

"Just more practice," murmured Enjolras. "I don't know why I didn't find it before. I was just… it was so…" He turned the ball in his hand, staring at it as though he were seeing something else.

"I never could make sense of Combeferre's gadgetry," said Courfeyrac fondly. "I hope you know how to work it?"

Without a word, Enjolras turned around and opened a cabinet. Behind it was a vast system of knobs and dials and buttons. Enjolras put the wooden ball in a dishlike setting, where it began to slowly spin. The screen flickered to life, and Combeferre's image moved its mouth silently for a few seconds before the sound kicked in. 

"-barred and blocked the door, but it won't last long," Combeferre was saying. His eyes were red. Sweat glistened on his forehead, tears on his cheeks. "Enjolras, I'm sorry. We didn't hear them coming. I didn't even hear them kill-oh god." The image on the screen jolts and flickers, and the intermittently cutting speakers transmit the sound of steady pounding on the office door.

"-Azelma, and I'm sure-" The image buzzes, fills with snow, resumes. "-Trust Javert. He approached me-" Crackle, jolt. "-volunteer for the revolution. An angel could-" Flicker, buzz. "Accept his help. Listen to me." Stutter, crackle. "-trust Javert. Find him, he's the-" Buzz, crackle. "Enjolras, I'm so sorry. Get Courfeyrac, don't do this alone. You can't serve the revolution if you're dead. I'm sorry." There was the sound of cracking, a door starting to splinter. "It's not your fault, Enjolras."

The screen went to static. Courfeyrac reached out and switched it off.  
Courfeyrac took a deep, shuddery breath. He looked over to Enjolras, who was staring at the snowy screen with tears wet on his face to match Combeferre's.

"What do we do now?" asked Courfeyrac quietly. It was not a question the Marquis, ubiquitously connected and all-knowing, would ever allow anyone to hear him ask. But this was only Courfeyrac, as he had been on the way up the ladder once, in that little wooden room in the painting-a young revolutionary with a dead best friend. It had been a long time since that room, but it was the part of the Marquis that still held Enjolras as his captain.

"We do what Combeferre said," was Enjolras's reply. "We find the angel Javert."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire reaches the Floating Market at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you guys don't believe me anymore when I say I don't abandon fics, huh? Well believe it or not, I'm telling the truth. Having unfinished stories is as uncomfortable as owing a favor to the Marquis de Carabas, and in both cases the best course of action is to get them off your hands however you're able. Who knows how long it'll take to rid myself of my current WIPs, but by god, we'll get there.
> 
> As always, for Brianna, whose only hope to get to read this whole thing before she's old and gray is to bother me about it continually.

The Floating Market was much more familiar than Grantaire expected it to be. Well, familiar in theory. He’d never had much reason to bum around in Le Bon Marche himself. The stationery section was nice enough, but he always felt too shabby to show his face, like he had to wear proof he shopped there to be admitted. A sort of fashionable chicken-and-the-egg scenario. 

Grantaire wasn’t sure how they’d supposedly been in, or at least under, Les Gobelins, and somehow emerged through a sublevel door right in front of the huge department store, but he was not in a mood to ask. It was bizarre to see the clean, white-and-black decor of Le Bon Marche buried under the clutter of the market--almost as bizarre as the market itself. It was sort of like the bar in Star Wars where they meet Han Solo, crossed with a very loud, filthy Renaissance fair, complete with failure to adhere to any particular time period. Patrons of every size and color and description, dressed in formalwear or thrift store castoffs or things that were arguably not clothes at all except in a sort of philosophical sense, crisscrossed the pristine white floors between carts and stalls and tables selling a variety of things that had never been on a Bon Marche shelf and foods that had never been served in its gourmet restaurant.

Near the Chanel boutique, a rickety wooden cart bore a sign advertising “Poetry, birds, and information.” The words were painted in the style of an illuminated manuscript, with an ornate pigeon nesting in the circle of the P, which was very pretty but made it difficult to read, it was the man underneath the sign, however, which caught Grantaire’s eye.

“Jehan!” he greeted with a wave. When Jehan saw him, he lit up in recognition and waved broadly back, disturbing the pigeons roosting on his shoulders who cooed angrily. It surprised Grantaire how much good it did him, just having someone be happy to see him. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and ambled up to Jehan’s cart through the strange crowd.

“Wasn’t expecting you here!” said Jehan cheerfully. Grantaire grimaced.

“Wasn’t expecting myself here,” he answered. He gestured up at the sign. “So you sell information?” he says.

“And birds,” Jehan added helpfully. “Would you like a bird? They’re very wise. And delicious. Although they have terrible taste in poetry.”

Grantaire paused in the middle of what he was about to say, mouth still open. After a second, he shut it. “Right,” he finally said. “Uh, I mean no thanks. I just want to find out where to find Enjolras. Can you tell me?”

“For the right price,” said Jehan, nodding. The dove on top of his head swayed a bit and ruffled its wings.

“I, uh. I don’t have any money,” he said awkwardly. He dug in his pockets for even a spare cent, but came up with nothing except a stub of drawing charcoal and his flask.

“I’ll sell you the information,” said Jehan with bright eyes, “for a swig and a piece of poetry.”

“Now Grantaire really balked. “Poetry?” he said. “Like… someone else’s, or an original?”

Jehan looked greedy. “Do you _have_ an original?” he asked eagerly.

“No,” said Grantaire.

“Oh,” said Jehan, disappointed.

“I’ve got some of someone else’s, though,” he said quickly. “Do you like, uh… Dorothy Parker?” He handed the flask over, and Jehan unscrewed the top, answering Grantaire’s question with nothing more than an expression of expectant waiting. 

“Um, right,” said Grantaire. “Okay. ‘There’s little in taking or giving, there’s little in water or wine; this living, this living, this living was never a project of mine,’” he recited, a little singsong in his awkwardness. He wasn’t the kind of person, apparently, that people expected to know poetry--alcohol is meant to erode all parts of the brain that don’t have to do with drinking more alcohol and being a disappointment to your friends or family, or something. Although to be fair, part of the reason he knew a lot of quotes and shit was because they were disproportionately impressive and made people think he was smarter than he really was. Dorothy was a bro, though. 

“Hard is the struggle, and sparse is the gain of the one at the top, for art is a form of cartharsis, and love is a permanent flop,’” he declaimed, warming to the performance and raising his chin. “And work is the province of cattle, and rest’s for a clam in a shell. So I’m thinking of throwing the battle’--” He spread out one hand expressively toward their weird surroundings, and in his head, toward all that had become of his life within the last forty eight hours. “--Would you kindly direct me to Hell?”

Jehan applauded wildly, and Grantaire swept off his beanie and bowed deeply. 

“Bravissimo!” Jehan declared, then raised the flask in a toast, and took a polite swig--not a sip, but not too greedy. He replaced the cap and handed it to Grantaire. “Lord Enjolras is in ladies’ shoes,” he reported. “They’re auditioning bodyguards.”

“Bodyguards?” Grantaire repeated stupidly, accepting back his flask and tugging his beanie back onto his head. “That's… foreboding.”

“Say hello to the Marquis for me,” said Jehan, dimpling. “And thank you for the poem.”

Grantaire waved goodbye to Jehan and his cooing, grousing birds, and ventured forth into the crowd in pursuit of ladies’ shoes.

Even if Grantaire had been intimately familiar with the layout of Le Bon Marche he might have gotten lost tonight, he thought.The scene around him was totally alien, and only a glimpse here and there of a display of non-Market merchandise or a potted plant or architectural detail reminded him of where he was. Most of his attention, though, was taken by the Market-goers. He had never before been in the midst of such a large number of people who all looked like they could and would murder him for his threadbare sneakers and rare collector human vertebrae and leave his body on the tile floor. He bumped into someone who looked like nothing so much as a human/rhinoceros hybrid as he passed a curry stand in homewares. Grantaire backed away, apologizing profusely, but the very large, leathery-skinned individual just turned to stare at him stonily until he fled.

He found ladies’ shoes, at last, almost by accident. The dense crowd parted suddenly on a clearing, in which a broad shouldered figure in a blank-eyed mask stood facing what looked like an aging nun holding a knobby club.

“Claquesous and Sister Simplice,” announced a familiar voice, and Grantaire searched the faces to finally catch sight of the Marquis Courfeyrac standing on the edge of the clearing. “Begin,” said the Marquis, and there next to him Grantaire spotted Enjolras, arms crossed over his chest and frowning. Grantaire’s stomach flopped over like an undercooked pancake at the sight of him, and he scolded it severely.

He was distracted from his discovery, however, when the big guy in the creepy mask barreled straight through his line of sight on his way to the nun. Grantaire blinked and stepped back quickly to give the fight space. 

He'd seen enough recently that he was not completely surprised when the tall, broomstick-thin nun was not pulverized by the masked guy. Instead, she stepped simply out of the way and swung the club with one hand as he passed, catching him solidly between the shoulder blades. The man howled as he overshot, then turned around and charged again, like a bull. The nun took hold of the man’s wrist this time as he went by, and spun him around like the shot put, slinging him off in another direction.

Specifically, directly at Grantaire.

 

\---

 

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Good to see you too,” said Grantaire blearily to the slightly fuzzy, outraged figure standing over him. Shit, his head hurt. Where was that nun? He kind of wanted to shake her hand. She had a hell of an arm on her.

“It’s _not_ good to see you. _Why_ am I seeing you?”

It took Grantaire a moment to remember a solid reason.

“Because… because I came to get you to put my life back!” he said, sitting up.

Enjolras’s face was hard. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Grantaire challenged.

Enjolras looked unimpressed. “Can’t,” he said coldly. Grantaire’s heart sunk.

“What the hell is he doing here?” said the Marquis, appearing beside Enjolras. The bodyguard auditions seemed to be on hold for the moment; the circle of onlookers was dispersing.

“That’s what I said,” Enjolras scowled.

“Look,” said Grantaire, despair starting to rise in his throat, “My friends don’t recognize me, my roommate rented my room, my bank card doesn’t work. So I thought I’d pop down to the Floating Market and say hi to the people responsible!”

“There’s nothing we can do,” said Courfeyrac apologetically. “You’re one of us now. That’s how it is.”

“Then—then let me come with you,” Grantaire blurted as Enjolras was starting to turn away, as though he’d just now thought of it, as though it was his grudging second choice. “You know, to free the baronies or avenge your friend or whatever it is you’re doing.”

Enjolras’s unimpressed expression deepened. “‘Whatever it is.’ Yes, a stellar recommendation. You’ll stay here, thanks.” He turned again and Courfeyrac, with an apologetic glance backward, followed.

“I saved your life,” Grantaire called after him. 

The words were casual in the manner of a last-ditch effort that isn’t expected to work. Enjolras stopped walking, but didn’t turn around. Grantaire stood up, dusted his jeans off. 

“Didn’t I?” he continued. “I mean, I didn’t do it in hope of a favor or anything.” He stuffed his hands in his hoodie pockets. “You were in trouble, so I helped you. And you destroyed my life.” Grantaire shrugged. “It wasn’t much of a life, but, y’know. It was working out okay. And you destroyed it. And you knew it was gonna happen.” It was more listless than accusatory. Enjolras’s fists were balled at his sides. “Probably knew it from the moment I turned you over on the sidewalk. So.” He swallowed. “Just thought it was worth mentioning.”

He waited. But Enjolras gave no indication of intending to turn around. Grantaire did instead. He walked away into the crowd of the market, gulping around a knot in his throat, shouldering carelessly past all the strangers which had terrified him so much before.

So he didn’t hear the first soft “damn it” from Enjolras or see the question he glanced at Courfeyrac (answered by a bland “your call, boss” expression more condemning than anything the Marquis could have said). Nor did he hear the second, more emphatic “ _Damn it,_ ” or see Enjolras turn around at last and push through after him.

It wasn’t until Grantaire slowed near ladies’ business casual that Enjolras managed to catch up with him. Grantaire was walking fast, his head down. He didn’t see Enjolras or hear him calling Grantaire over the din of the market until Enjolras grabbed his elbow.

Grantaire stopped as suddenly as if he’d hit a wall, but didn’t turn toward the man standing next to him. Enjolras dropped his elbow. There was a pause, the two of them immobile with the crowd parting around them, where neither spoke.

“Your life expectancy really isn’t any better with us than alone,” Enjolras said. “It’s probably worse.”

Grantaire shrugged. “I kind of figured,” he answered. “I just… it’s better than being alone down here.” That sounded kind of pathetic, Grantaire thought, but it had the advantage of being true. And it still sounded better than “I just don’t want to let you go.”

Enjolras breathed in deeply through his nose. Grantaire didn’t know whether the sound was so loud as to be heard over the market, or if Grantaire was just so keenly aware of Enjolras as to hear it. It was unmistakably the breath of somebody gathering willpower for a difficult pronouncement.

“Well,” Enjolras said. “Come with us.”

Grantaire knew he should let it go, should nod solemnly and say thank you. But Enjolras looked like he might actually feel a little guilty about Grantaire’s speech, and he was frowning so seriously. And when it came down to it, Grantaire just couldn’t help himself.

“See, I don’t really _believe_ that you want me along when you say it like that,” he teases. “Give me the line again, but this time, sell it to me.” 

Enjolras’s eyes flashed warningly, and Grantaire grinned. Yeah, he’d probably just ensured his own death by signing on with this crew, even if this was real and not some awful booze dream Grantaire was having face down in a gutter. But on the other hand, there was Enjolras. Grantaire didn’t know whether it was a Below thing or an Enjolras & Co. thing, this intense belief in ideas and people and the ability to Make Things Better. It seemed to be common among those he’d met here, but maybe it was due to this shining lordling passing it around like some contagion of conviction.

Grantaire just knew there were few in his old life that felt this deeply. Except Feuilly, maybe, but even he was sometimes too tired for proper optimism. It was certainly an attitude foreign to Grantaire himself; his life had never been a thing that encouraged or required belief. In this impossible place, he found that every breath took utter faith in the air and every step complete conviction to pin his feet to the ground. It was a little exhausting.

Maybe Enjolras would rub off on him, too.

The Marquis had rejoined them, and brought with him a familiar face. “I have found your bodyguard,” the Marquis declared, and the girl in leathers inclined her head to Enjolras in the smallest possible bow.

“Oh, hey,” greeted Grantaire.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” the girl asked.

Grantaire tried not to glance at Enjolras, but it was automatic, like he was checking that the man was still there. “Yeah,” he said.

Marquis Courfeyrac raised his eyebrows. “You two know each other?”

“She came with us through _Les Gobelins_ ,” Grantaire said. “Me and…” He swallowed. “Me and Gavroche. The little rat-speaker. He didn’t make it.” Both of the other men looked somber. Grantaire reached into his pocket and dug out Gavroche’s cockade. “Here,” he said, holding it out to Enjolras. “He said you gave it to him.”

Enjolras shook his head. “Keep it,” he said. Grantaire hesitated, and withdrew his hand. He would have pinned it on his shirt, but he wasn’t sure what the cockade meant in this context; it seemed to be something of theirs, something about the freeing of the baronies, and as “Monsieur Upside” who had never been ruled by a lord, who understood nothing of this world or this life, it felt presumptuous. Instead he just stuffed it back into his pocket.

“Who is my bodyguard, then?” said Enjolras.

“Éponine,” said the woman, not offering a handshake. Enjolras blinked in surprise. The Marquis grinned.

“ _The_ Éponine?” said Enjolras. “Éponine the Hunter?”

“Yeah,” said Éponine.

“I thought you were abroad,” he said.

“I came back,” she answered.

“Right,” said Enjolras, and Éponine, to Grantaire’s secret delight, rolled her eyes.

“I suppose you won’t need a guide as well as bodyguard,” Éponine said, eyeing the Marquis. He grinned to be recognized.

“No, I have that well in hand, thank you. Your expertise will most definitely be required for the guarding of bodies,” he conceded. “But come,” he said, addressing Grantaire more than anyone, it seemed. “We have a long way to go.”

Around them the Market was beginning to dismantle, stalls rolled and collapsed and folded into a bunch of rolling carts or packs on backs or beasts. It was amazing how quickly and cleanly the Market vanished. It disoriented Grantaire to a degree that surprised him—surely the Market’s presence in the venerable old department store should be the unnerving thing, not its absence. But so much had proven impermanent in the last few days, so much had gone for good…

He watched Enjolras and Courfeyrac as surreptitiously as he could while they made their way through the bustling closing of the Market. Gavroche had clearly been known to them, but the news of his death had passed through them like wind. Possibly Enjolras’s purchase of the cockade had just been an indulgence for a fan rather than a gift for a young friend. And Marquis Courfeyrac seemed like a schmoozer. Maybe he had just schmoozed Gavroche too—the kid had probably been a more valuable ally than most of the adults Grantaire knew would have been. But Gavroche hadn’t seemed very schmoozable.

Gavroche was dead. He had been just a kid and he was dead. Grantaire had barely known him a couple hours and he couldn’t reconcile that. These two—but then, their stronghold had been attacked and their friends killed, and here they were, walking next to Grantaire and discussing their plans to—what? Avenge them, Grantaire supposed—as calmly as though they were discussing groceries.

Grantaire had seen the blood go out of Courfeyrac’s face when he heard the news. He had felt Enjolras clutch his arm that night when, Grantaire realized now, he must have been just running from the place, or the killers, or both. _Most of the blood wasn’t mine._ It wasn’t that these men didn’t have feelings. Maybe tragedy was just more easily forgotten here, in a world with so much of it. Maybe there was no option to carry it with you.

It was the best case Grantaire had yet encountered for getting out of here and back to his old life. He glanced again at Enjolras, his once-again dirty face stern as he said something about an angel to Courfeyrac. Grantaire suspected that case would not be quite good enough.

“Wait, where are we going?” he put in. “What’s this about angels?”

Enjolras, as expected, just glared at him, but Courfeyrac smirked.

 

“We’re going to find one,” he said. “One in particular, that is. His name is Javert.”

“An… angel,” Grantaire repeated.

“Yes.”

“And this is…” He stopped and rubbed his temple. He could feel another headache coming. “This is… a member of some sort of organization, right? Call themselves the Angels or something,” he asked, even though he knew the answer already.

“No, he’s an actual angel,” said Courfeyrac. “Wings, halo, the whole bit. Or one assumes. I’ve never met him myself.”

“So your basic, standard-issue, Judeo-Christian angel,” Grantiare confirmed.

“I believe so,” Courfeyrac said.

“There’s no such thing,” Graintaire said flatly.

“Ah. Just as there is no such thing as Floating Markets, I imagine,” returned the Marquis. Grantaire shook his head.

“Nah,” he said. “I’m a good sport. I’ll believe in all this crap, sure,” he said, stopping to hold a door open for a twelve-foot-tall thing covered in long hair. “Unicorns, Loch Ness Monster, ghosts, Floating Markets, functioning democratic republics. Sure. But angels?” He shook his head again. “Angels aren’t real. They’re imaginary. Somebody came up with them”—he tapped his skull—“in their _head._ ”

“That will certainly put a dent in our search for one,” said the Marquis cheerfully.

“You too, you believe in angels?” said Grantaire, turning to Enjolras, but immediately thought better of it. “What am I saying, of course you do. How about you?” he tried instead, turning to Éponine. “You seem like a reasonable human being. You believe in angels?”

“I’m not being paid to believe or not believe in angels,” Éponine replied. “So I have no opinion.”

“A practical if somewhat mercenary view,” said Grantaire. There was a moment of silence before Grantaire sighed. “So where does one go snipe hunting for angels, out of curiosity?”

“We’re going to go to the Sergeant of Waterloo,” said Courfeyrac when Enjolras didn’t respond. “He’ll know.”

“Of course he will,” said Grantaire, and promptly shut up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the curious and Google-challenged, the poem Grantaire recites is "Coda," by Dorothy Parker. He's right, Dorothy is a bro and you should check her out.


End file.
